Tagged with Local Elections 2014

If topping the poll and being projected to win 65 more seats than the Tories is failure, what does success look like?

ballot boxThe Daily Telegraph caps it all with their front page top headline: “UKIP surge puts Labour into poll crisis”. If coming top of the poll in a 4-horse race with 31% of the total votes and on that basis being projected by two separate analyses to gain 322 seats (just 4 short of an overall parliamentary majority), 65 more than the Tories, is being thrust into a poll crisis, what would count as a thumping success? Continue reading →

Lazy thinking and the election results

AvalancheSome points challenging the avalanche of lazy thinking tumbling off Mt Politics about the local election results.

Complacency, part one. UKIP did very well, they won 161 seats. It is very silly, as some do, to bang on about the party having zero MPs and not winning any councils. Outside of London, UKIP have put down and strengthened their roots in Tory and Labour-held constituencies alike. The project to replace the Tories, to muscle in on non-Labour working class voters continues apace. Continue reading →

Big issue in local elections is not UKIP, but abandonment of white working class

ballot boxWhy is it that UKIP has stormed to 160 seats in the rest of the country, but not in London? It’s because London is by far the most prosperous part of the country and members of the white working class are much more likely to be able to find a job at reasonable pay than elsewhere across Britain. Though they have certainly not been excluded from the bruising experience of austerity cuts over the last 5-6 years, the hurt and the pain has generally been much less keenly felt in London than elsewhere. That explains why UKIP failed to make inroads in London and Labour did notably well there. Continue reading →

Rotherham election analysis: UKIP win the popular vote in Labour disaster No 1

ballot boxThe election result in Rotherham declared in the early hours of this morning was a disaster for Labour. UKIP  won 10 seats (+9) to Labour’s eleven, but UKIP won the popular vote with 46% compared with 43% Labour, 10% Conservative, and 6% other. It would take a further swing from Labour to UKIP of only 4.5% for it to win every seat at the next election, to become the largest party on a hung council.

If this result was repeated in the general election, UKIP would stand a reasonable chance of taking all three seats in the district – Rotherham, Rother Valley and Wentforth. Continue reading →